


Who Am I To You?

by SunshineA



Series: Lucid Lovers, Iron And Frost [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bottom!Loki, FrostIron - Freeform, M/M, Smut, Top!Loki, bottom!tony, lots of it I guess, some blood too (look: the warning), there's a brief Pepperony but not too much, top!tony, yep they switch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:47:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineA/pseuds/SunshineA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's staff worked on Tony. The man was under his control now. But was he truly controlling him? Was everything Stark did just because his "master" needed that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Am I To You?

**Author's Note:**

> Now, I know the motive with Loki's staff working on Tony was used 23756 times already, but I just couldn't help myself. I had this idea in my head for a long time and then [Simone](http://jacketofmeat.tumblr.com/d) sent me a prompt that just begged me to use it with my idea and I had no other choice.
> 
> I hope you'll like it, sweetie ♥
> 
> And I'll appreciate every feedback on this work, so don't be mean to me, okay?
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely [qwanderer](http://qwanderer.tumblr.com/)

Loki walked toward the Man of Iron. Uncertainty was visible in his brown eyes, which made the god smile evilly. The man in front of him must’ve know exactly what was going to happen now, and yet… he just stood there. Looking at Loki with expectation and fear in his eyes.

The god took another two steps and said, “How will your friends have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting you?”

He hit the chest of the Man of Iron exactly in the place where his heart was, behind muscles and bones. There was a loud click, like the peak of the staff had hit metal, and a blue shot of magic disappeared inside the flesh.

Or was it really flesh?

Loki frowned, looking at the point from which he removed the staff. It was glowing with a blue light, but it wasn’t the color of the staff’s magic. It was different. Deeper and darker. He looked up at the man in front of him and instead of the dark brown orbs he saw just seconds ago there was the blue he saw in the eyes of others he controlled before.

“Ah…” he said quietly, still looking into the blue. It felt so similar to the power he felt inside his hand holding the staff and himself, and yet there was something different about it.

“Loki,” said the man blankly.

“Go help the Chitauri,” the god said after a second, turning his back on the Man of Iron. “If defeat seems close, come to me.”

“Okay,” the man said with his old tone of voice and Loki heard him walk towards the place his other suits were hidden.

Minutes later he saw Iron Man fly off, crashing through the window and going back into the fight. Now on the side he was fighting against not a long time ago.

* * *

 

They had to flee.

Even with Iron Man on his side, Loki wasn’t able to win against Thor and his human friends. The failure hurt him, more physically than mentally. He knew what was going to happen now. If he didn’t give himself up to Thanos, he would find and kill Loki in the most painful way, even the god couldn’t imagine.

He was now sitting on a rock, somewhere on Midgard with the Man of Iron at his side. Stark was without his armor, sitting in just his dark jeans and shirt with that weird thing on the front. The sun was going down just in front of them, but it was still warm. Warm enough for the man to not shiver from the cold and warm enough for Loki to remove the leather parts of his own armor.

The god wasn’t sure where they were exactly; in the chaos of the fight, coming straight at him, Iron Man had told him they needed to disappear fast, while grabbing him by the waist and lifting from the ground. They were up in the air above Stark Tower, when he heard the owner say that Loki needed to move them far away from here.

So Loki did move them. It was the first place he thought of and he didn’t regret his decision so far. No one could suspect them to run away to this place. And it was perfect to just lay low for a day and think about future actions.

“Where are we?” He heard the question leave Stark’s mouth.

“I do not know,” Loki replied and let himself sit on the rock more loosely.

He lay his back on the rock behind him, placing his hands on his thighs.

“So you can move yourself to places you’ve never been to?”

“Of course not.” He gave Stark the look he used to give Thor, when he asked a particularly stupid question. “I saw this place before somewhere, but I cannot remember where.”

“Oh, okay.” Stark nodded and looked with his unnaturally blue eyes at the sunset. ‘Well, it’s nice here.”

Loki didn’t respond to that.

Instead, he used the opportunity to look at the man closer. He could still see the blue light through the material of his shirt. He couldn’t remember being more curious about anything than what the source of it was. He asked Barton about everything he needed to know for the fight. Before the events in Stuttgart, Hawkeye told him a lot about the Avengers. But about Iron Man he knew the least. All he was able to say was that Anthony Stark had a suit and its source of power was something that was in the man’s chest.

Now, Loki saw that thing very well and still couldn’t tell what it was exactly. And why. Did Stark put it in his chest just for the sole purpose of powering the suit? Was he so desperate for attention that he placed a mechanism inside himself? Or did something happen in his past that made him put a device like that into his heart?

Loki could simply ask him these questions, but first he wanted to see if he would be able to get to know the answers just by watching the man. So far, it wasn’t going well. Stark just sat there, not moving and watching the sunset like it was his first time.

“You know,” the man spoke suddenly and Loki raised his eyebrows, surprised. “I don’t get to watch sunsets often. And if I did it always was to seduce some doll and have sex.” He laughed at that.

The god frowned and kept looking at the man, trying to figure out why he was saying that. Then he remembered their talk before Loki took control over him. He came to the conclusion that Stark just liked to talk.

“If you just had boobs, I would fuck you,” Stark said and looked at Loki, cocking one eyebrow.

Loki laughed loudly, without any amusement in his voice. “I am in no need of sexual interaction with you, Stark.”

“Shame. If only I would still do men…” he sighed and eyed the god up and down. “But I think I could go back to that just for one night.”

Loki sent him a dangerous look. “I told you, I am in no —”

Before Stark’s face covered his vision he saw the blue in his eyes change color, like it was slowly fading away. His heart started beating faster, but he didn’t know if it was fear or just the feeling of someone so close to him. Stark looked him straight in the eyes for a long second before he started kissing Loki’s jaw line.

“Mm…” he purred. “Yes, I can definitely do men again for one night.” And he sucked Loki’s skin just above his throat.

The god let out a quiet moan, and placed his hands on both sides of Stark’s chest device to push him away but…. He clenched his hands into fists in the man’s shirt and pulled him closer.

In between Stark’s kisses he was thinking _why_?

Loki would never admit this to himself, but he’d felt alone since he found out he wasn’t an As. He couldn’t bring himself to think about the events on the Bifrost. He just wanted revenge; he wanted to make everyone he’d thought had loved him feel the same as him.

And who had loved him the most? Thor. Who betrayed him in the end? Thor.

Loki felt this person, who was now kissing him, needed him, in some twisted and sick way, but he wasn’t going to question the why. He had been alone for so long. He deserved some affection. And he was going to take it, when it was shown to him. Even when he was certain he didn’t deserve it, because of who he was.

He pulled his still fisted hands to the sides and heard the material of Stark’s shirt rip in two pieces. The man didn’t stop placing kisses on the god’s neck, sucking it here and there, which made him moan quietly every time. Loki ran his long fingers on the man’s warm chest and stopped just for a second on the device. It was ice cold, which made Loki shiver a little bit with disgust. He hated cold.

Stark moved up, back on Loki’s jaw line, moving higher and higher until he reached the god’s lips. Loki looked at him and saw a question in still blue eyes. The man waited for his consent.

The god felt a feeling wash over him, one he never thought he would feel again. He moved his face closer to Stark’s and bit his lower lip. Stark just smiled with want and pushed his lips onto Loki’s, sucking and biting hungrily. It didn’t take long for the god to do the same to him. Soon, he felt his leather pants getting tighter and tighter with every move of Stark’s tongue in his mouth.

Stark pushed him down and lay on top of him, sliding his warm hands under Loki’s tunic. The touch on his stomach made Loki shiver with anticipation. He wanted to feel Stark’s skin all over him; he wanted to feel Stark needed him as much as he needed the man’s touch right now.

He stopped the kiss and let Stark take his tunic off. It was thrown somewhere behind them and the kiss started again, even more hungry than before. Loki was desperate for any kind of affection. He grabbed Stark by the waist and raised his own hips to grind them up against Stark’s – as it turned out – full erection.

“Oh, God-d.” The billionaire panted and bit on Loki’s lower lip, breaking the skin.

“Call me Loki,” the god jested, and pushed his tongue inside Stark’s lips passionately.

Stark started moving his hands all over Loki’s chest, getting lower from time to time and brushing Loki’s erection gently with his warm fingers.

Loki was on the edge. He felt, _knew_ , he wouldn’t last long if this was to continue. It’d been too long since he’d had sex and it wouldn’t take long for him to come, especially with Tony’s tongue now moving on his chest. He left wet trails on the god’s pale skin, sucking and biting on some spots. When he bit one of the trickster’s nipples, the feeling sent his hips up, brushing Loki’s hard cock over Stark’s belly.

“T-take me,” the god gasped, when Stark licked the skin of his abdomen, slowly taking his leather pants off. “ _Now_.”

He didn’t need to be told that twice. With one move of his hands, Loki lay naked in front of him with his hard cock standing invitingly.

“Shit,” the engineer whispered and bit his lip, while undoing his pants.

In the meantime, Loki grabbed himself and started pumping, sending Stark needy looks. Tony took out his right leg from the material and lay himself on top of Loki, brushing their cocks against each other. They both moaned loudly at the touch, not caring about anyone hearing them.

“I said: _take me_ ,” Loki muttered, looking Stark dead in the eyes.

Tony knelt in between the trickster’s pale legs, brushing his fingers over Loki’s entrance. The god sent him another deadly look and his hand moved dangerously close to his own cock, like he was trying to say “if you won’t please me, I’ll make you watch as I do that myself.”

The engineer grabbed his own cock and placed it by the hole, grabbing the side of Loki’s hips with the other. He slowly pushed the head inside, gasping. Loki, impatient with the man, made a sharp move. Stark’s cock was now inside him whole and he clenched his hands into fists from lack of anything else at the sensation.

“Oh my GOD,” Stark half-screamed, squeezing the pale flesh under his hands.

“Ride me,” Loki said passionately and sat up to grab the man inside him by the arms.

The billionaire made a first thrust and gasped again, louder than the last time. Being inside of Loki felt so different to him, so… amazing. It was nothing he ever experienced before and he was not going to stop, not even after his climax. He just wanted to ride the god until they both passed out on this rock and when they woke up, they would start again.

Loki wrapped his legs around Stark’s hips and closed the space in between them, wrapping his arms around him, too. Stark kept thrusting, going faster and faster every second. After one of the harder thrusts he finally hit Loki’s prostate and the god moaned into his neck, biting the skin lightly.

Now that Tony knew at what angle he should move he hit the spot every time, making the moans of the god in his arms turn into quiet screams. He moved his hand up Loki’s spine and grabbed him by the nape to make the god look him in the eyes. Loki listened to him and raised his head.

What he saw in the unnaturally blue eyes made him shiver with surprise and want, but he refused to accept it. No matter what Stark would do and say, it would mostly be the working of the spell, nothing else. He needed to remember that and not let himself fall into anything as useless as a _feeling_. Of any kind. But that didn’t mean he was not going to use the opportunity to feel needed again.

He placed a kiss on the man’s lips, licking his lower lip, and moaning a second later, when his prostate was hit again. Their hungry kiss mixed with their moans was one of the best things Loki felt in his long life. He wanted this to last forever, just for the sake of feeling Stark’s tongue over his.

“Oh, yes… Loki,” the billionaire gasped in between the hard and fast thrust, biting his own lip. “I-I’m gonna —”

“Do not stop,” the god moaned, and embraced him closer, digging his nails into the flesh of Stark’s back.

They both came at the same time, Stark thrusting hard into Loki’s ass and moaning his name into the air as he threw his head back. The god just screamed, digging his nails deeper, almost breaking the skin. They both felt wetness on their chests, and fell onto the rock, breathing hard.

* * *

 

They had been on the run for almost a month now.

Loki had decided to stay on Earth, especially after Stark informed him that S.H.I.E.L.D. was not going to find them without the engineer by their side. The god knew they wouldn’t last long. If it wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. who found them first, Thanos undoubtedly would. He was using his magic to hide from his oppressor, but he was getting weaker and weaker from casting the powerful spell almost all the time. He couldn’t use the staff, because then the Chitauri would find them. And he wanted to have as much time with Stark as he could.

He would never admit this to anyone, even himself, but he had started to develop feelings for the mortal by his side. It seemed like his mind didn’t care if what Stark was saying every time he came inside of Loki was the working of a well-cast spell. Loki was finally needed again, and even if it all was just a hoax…. He would never dare to lose that because of his actions.

Loki was just a coward. Even if the spell Stark was under was cast with the use of the staff, he would not dare remove it. He would never do that, because that meant being spurned and alone once again. He didn’t know if he would survive that again.

He had once fallen into an endless and black abyss; he didn’t want to live through something like that again.

At that moment they were in a cave somewhere inside a mountain range in the middle of Europe. It was cold, and it took Stark a lot of time to convince the god to move here. Loki wanted to leave this place. Anything that reminded him about his true heritage was painful for him.

Loki shivered and hissed, closing his eyes with an angry expression on his pale face. Stark, who was sitting on the edge of the cave, turned around and looked at the god with concern in his blue eyes. They were still more blue than deep brown, and every time Loki looked into them, he felt guilty for keeping the spell in its place. Every single time, he considered taking it off, but then he remembered what would happen after that and drove the idea away.

He more felt than saw that the mortal stood up from his seat and walked towards him. He sat right by the god’s side and wrapped his arm around him, bringing the god closer. “Are you cold?” he asked, worried.

Loki pulled a face and shook his head. “No. I am well.”

“You don’t seem to be,” Stark stated, and placed his warm hand on Loki’s waist.

“I said, I am fine. You do not need to worry about me, I am a god,” he replied harshly.

The engineer chuckled.

“No need to get so sensitive.”

Next thing Loki felt were Stark’s warm lips on his.

It was unbelievable how the mortal still remained so warm sitting in this low temperature without his suit. Pieces of it were lying on the ground not far from them and were shining in the light of the cold sun that was sliding inside the cave.

The god reciprocated the kiss and let the mortal pull himself onto his lap. He sat on Stark’s thighs, wrapping his legs around his waist, bringing their bodies closer together.

“That’s right, come here,” Stark said, breaking the kiss and moving his warm lips onto Loki’s jaw line.

“Stay quiet,” Loki scolded and closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation.

Stark’s hands were now all over his chest, moving under his black tunic and making Loki gasp with every spot the man knew by now how to touch. The god was losing himself to the feeling until he felt a warm tongue on his again, which brought him back. With his eyes still closed he gripped the edge of Stark’s shirt, moving it slightly up and placing his hands on the skin at the small of the man’s back.

The engineer shivered, feeling the cold hands touching him, but instead of moving away he wrapped his arms around Loki’s waist and brought him closer to him. Both of them were slowly getting more and more forward in their movements. Their shirts were soon removed from them and used as blankets to protect their bodies even a little bit from the cold ground of the cave. With their every breath a small cloud of mist was left in the path of the warm air. The temperature didn’t matter to them anymore, though.

Their gasps became louder. Loki leaned back slightly to let Stark kiss his chest in the right spots. When he reached god’s abdomen he started pushing the leather pants down more and more. When Loki’s cock was out he licked the tip of it, making the trickster moan louder, and removed the pants with one slick move. He licked the whole length of Loki’s penis and sucked at the head, looking at the god’s reaction.

Loki fisted his hands and clenched his teeth at the sensation. A second later he let out a loud gasp, as Tony sucked harder on the head. After that he started pumping the god with his warm hand. The feeling was nothing Loki could ever describe. He was called a Silver-tongue, but when it came to this mortal he was at lack of words sometimes. Something that had never happened to him before.

And even after almost a month of their sexual explorations, it always felt to Loki like the first time. Back then he was sure the whole thing was so intense because of him not doing it for a long time, but when he still felt the same after the second, third, tenth time he started to think there had to be something about Stark that made him feel like this.

Again, he was developing feelings for the mortal, who was almost completely under his control, and even though he was aware of that perfectly, he couldn’t stop it.

Anthony Stark was becoming important to him.

The thought of losing him hurt Loki so much, he just stopped thinking about it whenever his mind wasn’t drifting away. It was sick, this thing between them, but he never wanted it to end.

Another hard suck on his cock made him almost scream from the pleasure. He tangled his long fingers into Stark’s black hair and pulled delicately to make him stop. Tony listened to the gesture and looked up at the god questioningly.

“Fill me,” Loki said straightforwardly and knelt before the man, starting to undo his pants.

The engineer didn’t say a word, he just raised his hips to make it easier for Loki to remove the material off his legs and gasped with relief when his hard cock was finally out.

Loki came back to him and pushed him down on the ground, still kneeling over his thighs. Stark obeyed again and just observed the god with lust as he started to place himself above him. Loki supported himself on the man’s chest with one hand and grabbed his cock with the other to guide it right at his entrance. Once the head was inside of him, he let out a loud moan and looked at Stark with want.

“Ride me, babe,” the engineer wheezed and filled Loki with one hard thrust.

The trickster screamed quietly as his prostate was hit. After all this time Stark knew exactly where to hit and suck to make him go crazy. Loki had driven his nails deep into the mortal’s chest and raised his hips to fall down a second later. Both of them gasped aloud and the god continued, speeding and slowing the pace every few seconds.

The engineer grabbed the god above him by the hips and took control over the pace and the angle of the thrusts, hitting Loki’s prostate harder and harder with every thrust. He watched the god going crazy. The trickster was now screaming and digging his nails into the skin just above the arc reactor, leaving red traces.

“Stark,” Loki gasped with lust with his eyes still closed. “ _Harder_.”

And the mortal obeyed without hesitation. They were both dripping with sweat, their screams filling the cave. When the climax came, Loki was the first one to pass out. He covered Stark’s chest with his semen and fell on him, breathing hard. With two hard thrusts the engineer came a second after the god, filling him inside.

When they finally got over their orgasms, Stark wrapped his arms around Loki, keeping him close. The trickster didn’t mind that – he buried his face into the man’s neck and started breathing the smell of it. It was the most beautiful scent he had ever breathed in his long life. He closed his eyes, enjoying it, and placed a small kiss on the skin close to his lips. Stark embraced him even tighter in return.

They stayed in that position until cold air reached them. They shivered when it hit their skins. Loki raised himself from Stark’s chest and stood up, the man’s cock pulling out from his ass. Stark sent him a wide smile and sat on the ground, moving his hand on the inside of trickster’s thigh.

That’s when Loki felt it.

“Get up,” he said gustily to the man and picked up his tunic from under his legs.

“What’s wrong?” Stark asked, surprised with the sudden change of the atmosphere in the cave.

“You need to gear up,” the god replied, putting on his leather pants. “They are coming.”

The man stood up in front of him, still naked, and sent him a scared look. “Who, S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Loki let out a quiet cry. “No, the Chitauri. Gear up!”

Stark sent him a terrified look and in one second he was picking up his clothes and putting them on.

Once Loki was in his clothes he snapped his fingers and his full armor was on him in a blink of an eye. He desperately watched Stark put on every part of his suit. The god was unable to help him with this since Midgardian, and especially Stark’s, technology was still a mystery to him. He suddenly started regretting that he hadn’t asked these kind of questions in their conversations.

The engineer was putting the face plate on when a sudden darkness fell into the cave and both of them were sucked into it.

* * *

 

When Loki finally opened his eyes he felt the biggest fear in his life wash over his naked body.

One would never mistake this darkness with anything else. He was finally caught; they’d found him after weeks of running and hiding from their watchful eye. There really was no escape from them, just like Thanos had said. He should have taken the spell from Stark as soon as failure came.

The god blinked sharply.

Stark. Where was he?

He tried to move his head, but it was immobilized by a leather belt. The same was true of his legs and arms. He was doomed. And he had no idea what had happened to the engineer.

Was he already dead? Or maybe they’d left him in the cave?

Lack of answers to these questions made him shiver, terrified for the mortal’s life. Loki was a god, he could manage to escape the Chitauri before they would start doing anything to him. He could find the needed magic. But he wasn’t sure if he’d manage to find Stark without knowing if the man was even here. It was a weak hope that he had been left on earth, but the trickster couldn’t stop from hoping for it to be true.

He heard a move on his right side and involuntarily tried to see who was coming. The belt tightened on his forehead this time and he gritted his teeth, keeping the gasp of pain in his throat.

“You fool,” he heard the familiar voice and shivered with fear once again. “You thought you could outrun us. Now look where it brought you.”

Thanos finally came into Loki’s vision. That didn’t make anything better. There were just two thoughts in the god’s mind. The first one made his heart beat faster from the waiting on the first blow. He knew what they were preparing for him. Thanos clearly told him what would await him here if he failed. He would suffer more than he ever did in his long life. Surprisingly, he was ready to go through that if only there was a promise he would be killed at the end and if—

“Where is the mortal?” The question escaped Loki’s mouth before he could think of stopping it.

Thanos grinned evilly and started walking around the table Loki lay on.

“Not far. He awaits his turn.”

 _No_.

They couldn’t do that to him. Not when Loki was the one to fail. They had to let him go; this was not his blame to bear.

Loki knew there was no possibility of a bargain with Thanos. Not when he had Loki right where he wanted. He needed to come up with an idea to save Stark. Loki was ready to die, if only Stark would survive.

And that was the moment when Loki finally understood that what he felt for the mortal was no jest.

Loki loved the mortal he had had under control for the previous month. And although he knew there was no way for Stark to return the feeling, it was already done.

All these days, Loki had known that everything Stark had said and done was the working of the spell and not his free will. All these days, he had been aware he should not develop any feelings for him, that everything between them was just an illusion. It was not real. And still he didn’t listen even to himself.

But that didn’t matter to him now. What was done was done, and he needed to save the engineer. No matter what it would take. He would die in the process if he had to, but Stark would be safe.

He watched Thanos circling him and taking out a black knife from behind the belt on his waist. It was long and still dirty from the dark blood of other Chitauri. Thanos looked at the blade for a while, turning it in his hand and looking at it with fascination in his dark eyes. Then he looked at Loki and it was replaced with utter hate and disgust.

“Our army failed, because of you. You promised us, Loki of Asgard,” he said the god’s name mockingly, “that Earth would be ours. You broke your promise. You fled and hid, like a coward without any honor. And thus you will be treated like one.”

The first cut was aimed at his left forearm. When the blade cut into his skin, Loki arched his whole body up, letting out a loud gasp of pain. Thanos didn’t stop at that. He pushed the blade deeper, right to the bone, and spun it, breaking more of Loki’s pale skin and flesh under it. As Loki arched his body more, now screaming, the belts around his forehead, wrists and ankles tightened even more, bringing him down to the table and immobilizing him.

All he could do now was scream as Thanos proceeded in cutting the skin of his arms, chest and legs, digging deep and as painful as he could possibly make it. Unfortunately, it was just the beginning.

Loki’s body was covered in cuts and deep holes. He was all covered in his own blood, trying to stay conscious. His magic was helping him to make the bleeding slower, but with so many wounds on his body, he started to doubt if he would survive long enough. He didn’t even notice when one of the Chitauri came back to his table with long, black needles in his hand. Loki felt a strong and cold grip on his right hand and screamed the next second, when one of the needles pierced under one of his nails.

The same happened with the rest. Loki started losing the strength to even scream from all the pain. All he was able to do now was breathe heavily with his mouth half opened and eyes half-closed. He could barely see Thanos moving to his head. The look in his eyes made Loki open his wide from fear. After he saw the hand still holding the needles, he knew what was going to happen now. He could only lie there and let the creature stab them in between his teeth and gums.

After that Loki was left alone, with all the needles in their places, sending excruciating waves of pain with every move of his muscles. The god was unable to use his magic to make it weaker; he could barely keep himself conscious.

He needed to get through this and find Stark. He needed to save him from Thanos.

They probably knew by now that he was important to the trickster in some way. Especially after he had asked about him. They would use it to make Loki suffer not only physically.

Loki tried not to think about the pain he was buried in now. What he had to do was find a way to save Stark as soon as he saw him. He had to make it fast, so the Chitauri wouldn’t have time to interrupt him. And for that he needed to keep his magic.

If he only could, he would avoid this, but there was no other way. He needed every help now and Odin’s magic was strong enough to make his spell more efficient. He closed his eyes tightly and shut down on the pain in his body. He concentrated on that one spell that controlled his body and was not his and sucked its energy inside himself, removing its working at the same time.

The wave of now pleasant cold washed over his body. It made the pain a little more bearable, for which Loki was thankful. He could feel the lines and signs appearing on his now rough and blue skin. He hated his true form, despised it in every possible way and never wanted anyone to see him like this, but he had no other choice.

Thanos came after some time. He wasn’t surprised with the view that welcomed him. The trickster sighed in his mind. _They must have known this from the beginning._

 With pure satisfaction on his face, Thanos started pulling the needles out, slowly and painfully. Loki was sure it was nothing compared to what was prepared for him later. It was just a sample of what the creature could really do.

Blood filled the trickster’s mouth as soon as the first needle left its place. He started choking on it as every single one of them was removed from his gums. The belts that kept him immobile on the table were removed from him. Loki felt strong and rough hands on his arms and next second he was held up an inch above the ground, held by the two of the Chitauri soldiers.

Thanos walked to him, with a devilish smile which made his face even more frightening, and pushed a finger into one of many wounds on the god’s chest. “Bring the mortal,” he called out, still pushing a finger into the flesh, digging deeper than the actual cut was.

Loki let out a loud moan of pain and clenched his teeth to stop it. That only brought out another moan, as the wounds in his gums felt like they were burning.

After a while of such a “fun game,” Thanos stepped away and watched as two of his soldiers carried Stark in his full armor onto the table. As soon as he showed up before trickster’s eyes, the god tensed his body a little bit, not caring about the pain anymore. He focused his now red eyes on the man and concentrated all his magic into one spell that was now just waiting inside his palms for the right moment to be cast.

Stark’s face plate was gone, ripped off, judging by the state of the rest of his helmet. He was looking around with a mix of curiosity and fear in his now almost brown eyes. There was still blue in them, but Loki could tell the spell was slowly fading away.

Good.

He would be saved and not bothered anymore about Loki. No one would be bothered by his presence ever again after Stark was sent back to Midgard.

When the man’s eyes found Loki there was a second of relief, but when he saw what form the god was in, it turned into shock. He kept his gaze on the god as the soldiers put him onto the table, awaiting further orders from their leader.

That was the moment.

Loki used his Frost Giant’s powers and made the hands of the creatures that held him freeze. Then he crushed them with one quick move of his arms and the air was filled by the inhuman screams of pain, as the hands were breaking into little icy pieces.

Stark, seeing what Loki was doing, hit one of the soldiers in front of him with his iron fist. The creature stumbled while the other one threw itself on the man. It was soon on the ground with a huge burned hole in its chest. Thanos just looked at what was going on, startled.

Not paying attention to the pain that filled him as he stepped onto the rock with his bloody feet, Loki made a few quick steps to see if his other form would let him walk. Coldness of his body was reducing the pain enough for him to actually endure it for a short time.

One of the Chitauri that had brought Stark was now fighting with him. Both of them were moving towards the edge of the rock they were all standing on. Loki started running in their direction, sure that with a few more steps, Stark would fall. He watched as the man’s foot made the last step and, losing his balance, he started falling. The Chitauri stumbled back to save itself as Loki fell on his knees on the edge.

He watched the man he loved fall down. He needed to cast the spell now. Loki pulled both his hands towards Stark and whispered the incantation he knew so well. He used this every time he wanted to visit one of the realms without asking Heimdall to open the Bifrost.

In a blink of an eye Stark’s shocked face was swallowed by the darkness. Loki fell onto the ground with relief and gauntness and smiled weakly. He did not care what Thanos did with him now. Stark was safe.

He made it.

* * *

 

When Tony woke up everything around him was in utter chaos.

A bunch of people he’d never seen in his life were running all around him, checking if he was okay, asking questions and preventing him from thinking at all. He was not left alone in his room for a single minute. Someone was constantly with him, like they expected him to blow up or have a panic attack.

He was soon done with everything and dreamed about falling asleep again, so he could run away from them. Because even when he assured them he was fine, they wouldn’t let him get up from his bed. Tony was on the edge at the second hour of this chaos and it would only take him minutes to scream at the people surrounding him.

But suddenly, everything was over. All of the nurses, doctors and other people were gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Exactly what he wanted.

He sat comfortably on the bed, with a pillow behind his back, and looked blankly at the wall opposite him.

He didn’t need to focus hard for the memories to come back. Once he closed his eyes for longer than one blink he saw events of the previous month displayed inside his head.

There was Loki. The famous God of Mischief and Thor’s brother, whom he had read about before he met him in Stuttgart. He remembered their talk about him, his and Bruce’s attempts to find him, the time he was under their custody and then the fight in New York. On both sides.

Tony fisted his hands at the memory of the staff’s power infiltrating the arc reactor and the feeling in his heart, when he suddenly was sure Loki was the one who was right in this fight. He remembered how he fought with the Captain and the rest of the Avengers, how he helped in destroying some buildings and – when it was clear they would fail – how he helped Loki to escape.

The whole time he was under Loki’s spell he could feel this coldness in his heart, the one that he thought dominated the space. It was like his heart and mind were covered in a thick layer of a particularly frozen ice. He couldn’t act on his own – at least in the fight. What had happened after they left New York was… different.

The coldness was not so strong, but it was still there. Even with that he could think on his own, but the control over his body and partly over his mind was in Loki’s hands. Or more the staff. Tony remembered every night he spent with the god, their every conversation, and… sex. Amazing sex. Unbelievable sex. Extra—

_Stop._

That wasn’t him who had had sex with Loki. Not one hundred percent him. He would never do something like that. Especially with the person who tried to conquer the Earth and brought an army of aliens that killed many people.

At least that’s what he thought.

At that point he realized he knew nothing about how the battle ended, how many people died and if the Avengers survived. He couldn’t see everyone, they were all around Stark Tower in many places and there was a possibility someone had gotten killed.

The door to his room opened and Pepper stormed inside. When she saw Tony, she let out a quiet cry and ran towards him. The air left his lungs when she hugged him with strength he didn’t suspect her to have. He embraced her and buried his face in her strawberry blonde hair.

The engineer felt it as she started sobbing quietly, trembling in his arms. He closed his arms around her more tightly and kissed her head, looking blankly at the floor.

He was supposed to feel something more than just concern. Why wasn’t he trying to calm her down right now? He was supposed to do that. Instead, one part of his mind was wondering why there was no familiar smell of snow and wood, when he breathed the air around her.

This was _wrong_.

“Pepper,” Tony said finally, smiling lightly to make his voice sound calm. It turned out to be hard, because his throat seemed not to have been used for a while. How long had he been unconscious?

Pepper raised her head, looking at him with red eyes. Her make-up was destroyed by now, but she didn’t seem to care about that. Tony saw pain mixed with relief in her eyes. This made him pull a face. It wasn’t often that he saw that in her blue orbs, and every time it made him feel like shit, because he was the reason. This time was no different.

“I was so worried,” she said, taking his face in her hands. “I thought he’d killed you.”

Tony looked her in the eyes – which wasn’t easy at this moment – and smiled. “I’m okay, as you can see. He didn’t do anything—”

Anything _what_? Life threatening?

Somehow, Tony had no idea how to end that sentence. These few weeks he’d spent with Loki were nothing but dangerous. Of course, they were on the run, hiding from S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Chitauri, but apart from that… Loki did nothing to hurt Tony. In their conversations, he was just mean and used irony very often. When it came to sex, Tony was the one who was hurting him. In a way. He was fucking Loki, not the other way around. And he seemed to never control Tony even if the spell remained in its place. But Tony wouldn’t know that, would he? He needed to talk to Barton about that.

It was all too complicated for Tony to think about now. Not with Pepper, his _girlfriend_ , in his arms and looking at him like that.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Tony finished quickly.

Pepper trembled again and tears fell down her face. He removed them with his thumbs and smiled at her, just to show her he really was okay. She closed the space between them, pushing her lips to his in a hungry kiss. At first, he didn’t know how to respond but after a second he returned it, trying to act like her, like he missed her all this time.

But did he?

* * *

 

Walking the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. was one of the things Tony decided to add on his “Never Again” list. Especially with the guy who’d taken Coulson’s place. He was nothing like the agent that wanted to taze him and watch _Supernanny_ while the engineer drooled into the carpet. This Coulson replacement was cold, stiff and had no sense of irony like the original had had. Tony missed the guy; Phil had been his favorite S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Actually, he was the only one Tony ever liked.

When they reached their destination, two agents nodded at the engineer and opened the door to the room. Tony entered, followed by Coulson 2.0, and stopped by the round table.

All of the Avengers were already there. Even Thor. They looked at him, every face with a different expression. Bruce looked happy, Steve relieved and Clint’s face was straight – as always. Natasha eyed him curiously, using her ability to catch everything even Cap would miss and tell it to Fury after everything was over. Thor was the only one who surprised Tony. He was always so loud and king-like. And Stark had only known him for a day. Technically.

Now the god was standing rigidly next to the chair Fury was sitting on at the opposite side of the room with his arms crossed on his wide chest. His face wore the same expression as Clint’s but there was this thing in his blue eyes that made Tony feel uncomfortable. It was almost like Thor was ashamed deep to his bones and didn’t know how to get rid of the feeling.

“Sit down, Stark,” Fury said, gesturing at the chair not far from Tony, that was right at the other end of the table. Tony sat down on it and found himself facing the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, whose one eye was directed straight at him. He never felt comfortable, when the man looked at him like that. It always made him think that he was in trouble.

Everyone kept staring at him, and it was driving Tony slightly mad. They hadn’t said they were happy to see him.

“So nice to see you again, director. How are you?” Tony asked with his brand-name smile spreading on his lips.

“Oh, I’m just getting over the huge battle in the middle of New York. It’s nothing,” Fury said with his face as deadly as it always was. Tony smiled awkwardly and decided to stop pretending to be polite. No one was going to be like that to him, why should he try then?

“What do you want with me?” he asked seriously, sitting comfortably in his chair.

“What happened after you and Loki left the city?” Fury leaned his forearms on the table with his fingers tangled. “And – more importantly – why did you help him?”

Tony frowned at him.

“You still didn’t figure that out?” he laughed mockingly. “He took control over me just like he did with Barton and Dr. Selvig.” Clint moved in his chair and sent Tony a wide-eyed look. The engineer ignored that and without further invitation from Fury he started talking, how he and Loki had spent the time. Of course, he left some details to himself, like the fact they had sex almost every night. They didn’t need to know that, and Tony was not in the mood to watch the startled and disgusted expressions of everyone in the room. And he hadn’t even told Pepper about this, there was no reason for him to tell it to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the team.

He talked for what felt like hours. When he reached the part with the Chitauri everyone moved in their seats to look closer at him. Tony noticed Thor’s jaw was rigid, like he had his teeth clenched, and his eyes were half closed, looking at the floor and not – like the rest of the room – at him.

He started talking about how the Chitauri soldiers brought him to a table and placed him on it. Suddenly, he felt like he was back there, on that damned rock, surrounded by the coldness that was present in his heart and mind all that time. He saw Loki, covered in blood, probably naked, but couldn’t see that, so much red was on the god. What was the most surprising thing, he was blue.

Tony was sure he must’ve been beautiful in this form, all those lines and flourishes covering his deep blue skin. His red eyes weren’t frightening to Tony at all; it was like he was sure the owner wouldn’t hurt him, not intentionally. Unfortunately, this view was obscured by cuts, holes and so much blood that Tony could barely make out parts of the body. It was painful for him just to watch Loki in this state and the god’s expression told him it wasn’t even over yet.

The most surprising thing happened right after Tony was set down on the table. Loki actually started fighting with the two creatures holding him. The engineer followed him, hitting one of the soldiers next to him in the face. When the other one threw himself on him he used a repulsor in his palm to get him off. Next thing Tony knew, he was backing away, trying to cover himself from the punches the first one was aiming at him.

And then there was just black, as he started falling, shock painted on his face. He tried to catch the edge of the rock, but it was too late. The energy in the suit was at its lowest levels and he couldn’t fly up. Then he saw Loki’s blue face and horror in his red orbs. A second after, the god’s hands were held in his direction and his lips barely moved as he focused his determined look on Tony.

Next thing Tony remembered was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hospital wing, which was this morning.

When he finally finished there was silence in the room; everyone except Thor looked at him with shock and an addition of other emotions: admiration, more shock, curiosity… Fury was the first to come back after Tony’s story. The man looked at the engineer and sighed heavily.

“You said there were Chitauri soldiers. You mean there are more of them?” he asked, leaning on his elbows and clenching his tangled fingers a little bit in front of his face.

Tony nodded. “I guess. I didn’t see much from where I was held, but I think it’d be safe to assume there might be another army there.”

Steve moved in his chair and immediately looked at Fury to see his reaction. Of course, the soldier needed to know what his leader thought. Shame, he still wasn’t aware he was way better than Fury. The director just kept looking at Tony, expecting him to say something more. The engineer just sat there, giving back the look and thinking about one thing: _home_.

“You said,” Bruce started quietly, “that Loki was blue. Was it his magic?”

Tony was about to answer that he had no idea, when Thor’s loud and low voice filled the room. “It is not his magic, my friend. It is his true form.”

“True form?” Tony repeated god’s word as a question. “What do you mean by that?”

Thor sighed heavily and looked at Tony. The sadness present there made Tony’s heart clench inside his chest.

“Loki is not from Asgard. He was born in a realm called Jotunheim. The land of Frost Giants.”

“Frost Giants…” Natasha repeated quietly, looking blankly at the table. “I remember that from somewhere.

“Are these Frost Giants – big?” Tony asked the God of Thunder. He received a nod in response. “Well, Loki was in his normal size, as far as I can remember.”

“It is the reason he was abandoned after the birth. His real father is the king of Jotunheim; he could not possibly have a son with an imperfection like that,” Thor said slowly and thoughtfully. “My father found him, crying in their temple after conquering the land. He took him, casting a spell on him so he looked like one of us and raised him as a son and my brother.”

“What the…,” Clint said, shaking his head. “This the highest level of fucked-up I can take.”

“Does Loki know everything? About his true form?” Natasha looked at Thor curiously.

“Yes, he does. He found out a short time after I was cast out on Midgard.”

“That’s not a long time,” Bruce spoke up, with a little bit of reprimand in his voice.

“It was what my father thought the best for him. I had nothing to do with hiding Loki’s true heritage from him,” Thor said, his voice louder.

While they were talking Tony came back to one of the days he and Loki had spent in one of the rainforests in the Amazon. They were hidden under the one of the biggest trees, sitting next to each other, the trickster’s head on Tony’s arm as they watched the fire in front of them.

The engineer remembered one thing about this particular evening. Loki told him exactly why he had decided to help the Chitauri.

“Thor was the one who was always by my side. No matter what I or he did, and no matter what everyone around thought. He was truly my brother and I was his. But after he was cast out here, something had changed in him,” Loki’s voice got quiet and Tony could hear the sadness in it. “He changed here; he was not the brother I used to know. And all it took was a Midgardian woman and her friends. I felt as --” he inhaled deeply, “as though I was betrayed. It hurt so much to watch him walk in front of the Destroyer, sacrificing his life for these mortals… just like he did so many times for me, often not even aware of that. I was jealous. And I don’t share, Stark. Conquering Earth seemed enough revenge. That is how I was raised on Asgard, always wreaking one’s rage with use of physical power.”

It all made even more sense now that Tony knew about the circumstances it all took place in. Loki acknowledging his true heritage. Thor “betraying” him and picking mortals instead. Tony couldn’t imagine how much it must’ve hurt him. He didn’t have any siblings and couldn’t possibly imagine himself being in that kind of situation. He had Rhodey and just the thought of being betrayed by his best friend made him shiver.

Tony did not approve of the way Loki decided to have his revenge, nevertheless. What he had done to the people of New York wasn’t something one can forget quickly, but still… Tony understood. He wouldn’t have been able to do that without these weeks he had spent with Loki. Their talks were sometimes more honest than the god might have wanted, and now, the engineer started to remember every single word the trickster had said to him during these conversations.

Another hour went by with the team discussing Loki’s story and Tony thinking over everything that had happened. When the meeting was finally over he was the first to leave the room, almost running through the halls. He came back to Stark Tower and headed straight for his workshop.

“It’s good to see you back, sir,” JARVIS welcomed him as he entered the floor.

“And it’s good to be back,” Tony replied, taking his jacket off. “And to hear you, JARV.”

“Thank you, sir. Anything you want me to do?”

Tony sat down in one of the chairs and summoned one of the screens from under the ceiling. “I need an update from after Loki’s attack on NY. Anything you can find.”

“I am getting it ready as we speak,” the A.I. replied and a second later the screen in front of the engineer showed the record from the fight on the streets. The invisible news reporter talked about the casualties, damage costs and the disappearance of Iron Man.

The part of the city affected in the fight was still under construction. Many people had lost their shelter and the Maria Stark Foundation was helping them to recover. A good move, made by Pepper for sure. No one else would think about that. And it also helped the image of the company. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Tony spent a few long hours in the workshop, going through everything JARVIS was able to find about the last few weeks, and the A.I. was the best, so it was pretty much everything that was ever published. That way Tony knew not many people were aware of the fact that Loki was behind the attack. Only S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers knew about him, actually. That was, for him, bad and good news at the same time.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was a pain in Tony Stark’s ass since their first appearance in his life and he just hated working with them and using their methods. The engineer was sure that now, when he was back and standing, they would use him to find Loki. Why wouldn’t they do that? He was the one who had spent so much time with the god, he would be just perfect for it. Tony just was not sure if he would help them. But did he really have another choice?

If he said no to that, they would start suspecting something more had happened when the two of them were on the run, and Tony couldn’t have that. He needed to do something before them.

Wait, why should he? He _wanted_ Loki to be captured for what he had done to the city and its citizens. For what he’d done to him. Tony didn’t need to do anything. He would just cooperate with S.H.I.E.L.D. with this one and everything would come up okay for him in the end. Probably with a few mistakes made by their agents on the way, but eventually Tony would have his revenge on the trickster. Because he wanted revenge on the god for taking control over him.

Right?

He heard steps on the floor and when he turned around he saw Pepper walking towards him, still in her office look. “I knew I’d find you here,” she said happily as she approached him and gave him a small kiss on the lips. “Did you at least eat?”

 Tony shrugged in response and cleared the screen with one smooth motion of his hand. “Nah, eating is for normal people.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and made him stand up by grabbing him by the hand. “I brought some Chinese with me. Come.”

They left the workshop holding hands, which felt strange for Tony. He explained to himself that it was because of his long absence, but he didn’t believe in that himself since Pepper was more than cool with this. She acted like it was a normal thing for them, and it was normal, but before the time Tony spent with Loki.

Now, every affection she directed to Tony felt… out of place. He felt like he was cheating on someone, and he never had that feeling. Since he and Pepper had started dating he’d dropped his playboy life and tried to become monogamous, just like the majority of people. It was all okay, fine, great even. He was doing so good, when Coulson came, interrupting their celebration, and handed him files about the Tesseract and Loki.

Since he had woken up, the engineer had pushed this thought away from himself every time he felt it creeping into his mind, but the truth was he felt like he was cheating on _Loki_ , and it felt so, _so bad_.

He felt bad, because Loki would be hurt more if he found out that Tony had come back to Pepper. Not that the god knew Tony was in the relationship to begin with. But still Tony didn’t want to make him more hurt than the god already was.

And then, there was Pepper. He felt bad just for feeling bad for Loki, because he just shouldn’t have these thoughts every time she touched him to show him her affection. Since this very morning, when she kissed him, he felt bad about cheating on Loki and then felt bad because he actually thought about the god while kissing his girlfriend.

Tony Stark had never been in a situation this fucked up, and he had no idea what he should do with that.

When they reached the living room one floor above, he decided he just had to stop thinking about the God of Mischief and the time they had spent together. That seemed like the only possible way out of this situation. He started almost immediately, listening to Pepper, who all this time talked about her day in the company.

She continued her story when they sat down on the couch. Boxes with Chinese were standing on a coffee table in front of them, but Tony didn’t reach for one. Instead he watched Pepper talk.

She looked beautiful, more than the first charity ball he saw her at, wearing a blue dress that was supposed to be “his” birthday gift for her. Now, in this very moment, he understood why he decided to try with her. He had no idea if this was love, but he was sure as hell Pepper was the woman he would like to spend the rest of his life with. She was beautiful, funny, clever and knew him better than anyone else. By now probably better than he knew himself. Why shouldn’t he love her? There were only positive sides to this relationship, he couldn’t see any wrong ones. Sure, they would fight - often, considering Tony’s behavior – but they could be the perfect couple.

Pepper looked at him and stopped her monologue. “What? I have something on my face?” she asked after a second.

“Can’t look at my girlfriend now?” Tony replied and smiled, when she did the same.

He put a hand on her waist and pulled her closer, kissing her lips lightly.

“Mmm… Did I tell you I missed you?” she asked again, looking at Tony with her eyes half-closed with pleasure.

“Yep,” Tony said and kissed her again, this time for a while longer, tasting her sweet lips with his tongue. “And I missed you, too, you know.”

He really meant that. No matter what kind of relationship there was going to be between them, Pepper would always be one of the most important people in his life. She did so much for him and to him, saving his ass every time he did something stupid and reckless and helping him with the board at Stark Industries, because she was better with people than he was. There was a reason why she had become his personal assistant, and then his best friend.

And now his girlfriend.

He felt it as she placed her hands on both sides of the arc reactor on his shirt and pushed him gently onto the couch. He obeyed and lay down, their lips pressed together all this time, locked in a passionate and hungry kiss. Tony’s face twisted a little, while he tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her closer to him just to feel she was really there.

God, how he’d missed her.

He started unbuttoning her white shirt. Their kiss started to be more aggressive, as her shirt landed somewhere behind the couch, and Tony felt her small hand on the front of his pants. She pressed it harder to his cock, gripping it through the fabric of his jeans and making him moan with pleasure. She smiled at that and licked his lower lip, breaking the kiss.

Tony watched as she started making her way down, kissing his chin and neck. Her hands were suddenly under his shirt, on his belly, and when she started moving them up on his skin he had to lift his chest to take it off. It followed Pepper’s white shirt. She returned to her previous activity, sucking on the skin right under Tony’s throat.

After a few seconds she went down a little bit more, leaving wet trails on his tanned skin, circling his nipples with her tongue before she bit it lightly. Every time she did that Tony’s hips went flying up, searching for the needed friction. He was getting harder with every second as Pepper was moving down. He closed his eyes when she was done with his nipples and let himself give into the feelings. He didn’t even notice when the memory of his last time with Loki started playing out under his eyelids.

Everything Pepper did to him, he saw it done by Loki in his mind. When his pants were removed and his cock gripped tight in a small hand he saw the trickster holding it and guiding it into his asshole. The memory became real to him when he felt warm insides on him, and he moaned loudly, letting out a stream of incomprehensible words.

He felt the god moving his hips and placing his hands on both sides of the arc reactor. Tony gripped his hips and controlled his movements to give him more pleasure. With Loki’s first moan, the engineer gasped loudly and strengthened the grip of his hands. The moves were becoming faster and faster and all Tony could hear was the moans of the man riding him.

When he was about to come, he clenched his teeth, moving his own hips to make the thrusts go deeper and with the wave of unspeakable pleasure he moaned “Uuugh, Lo—ki” into the air.

The god stopped immediately and it took a lot for Tony to bring himself together faster than usual and look at him.

But when he opened his eyes it wasn’t Loki sitting on top of him with his face struck with horror. He cursed under his nose and looked at Pepper as she kept staring at him for long seconds. He saw so many emotions in her blue eyes and each and every single one of them hurt more than the previous ones.

Horror. Surprise. Confusion. Realization. Pain.

He let Pepper get up from the couch. As she was collecting her stuff he got up, too, not caring about getting dressed, and made a few steps towards her, when she was putting her clothes on.

“Pep, I—”

“No,” was all she said and it was enough to make Tony know he fucked up.

As usual.

But this time it was the worst fuck up he could have ever done. He stood in the middle of the room naked, watching Pepper leave for the elevator. When she pushed the button, she sent him one last look over her shoulder. It made his heart clench with pain and sadness.

The silver door in front of her opened up, and she entered the elevator, pushing the right button.

She didn’t look at Tony again.

* * *

 

Tony was sitting by the desk in his workshop going through the results of JARVIS’s last scans and examinations of his body and mind. It was a week after the incident with Pepper, and since then he was staying in this one room, trying to find a reason. A proper one, at least.

He made JARVIS run scans on him a few times daily. The A.I. sounded bored after the fifth time Tony asked it to do that, but did it anyway. It was designed to obey Tony’s orders. Each time the results were the same: there was no sign of Loki’s magic in the engineer.

Still, he refused to believe that. The trickster just _had to_ still have control over him. Why would he moan his name when he came, if it wasn’t that? The spell had to be still in its place and somehow JARVIS couldn’t find it. There was no other explanation.

All this time Tony thought about Pepper and how he hurt her with just one word. One word was enough to ruin everything that was between them, and the worst part of it was Tony had no idea if things would be okay in the end. He didn’t expect her to forgive him. Hell, he wouldn’t forgive himself for something like that.

Pepper loved him. A lot. He knew that very well; she assured him about that very often. Even though he wasn’t sure he felt the same for her, he still decided to try with her. He remembered, he told himself “If it won’t work with her, it won’t work with anyone.”

And here he was now, sitting in his workshop, constantly doing scans of his body, trying any other explanation from the one that was in his head from the very beginning. He hid it in the darkest corner of his mind, and tried his best not to think about it at all. But every time he thought about last week’s incident, Loki’s name was present in his brain and it was always followed by this one thought.

But Tony just couldn’t believe and consider it. It was crazy enough to make him admit that, and when he finally did it, it was really insane. Still, it was coming back very often on the surface of his thoughts, making him stop in his tracks and think about it deeply.

The theory about Loki’s spell still being on Tony had been refuted so many times in the last seven days, he just finally had to admit the spell was long gone. It had been gone since Loki sent him back to earth to save him from an endless fall into the abyss of space. And this one idea was the hardest one for him to accept.

If Loki saved him, did that mean he felt something for Tony? Or maybe he just didn’t want to have an Avenger’s death on his crime list?

The latter must’ve been impossible. As a real villain he would love to have the death of someone from the team on his account. So this had to mean….

“Sir, colonel Rhodes is at the door to the workshop and demands to be let in. Should I do so?” JARVIS asked, breaking the stream of Tony’s thoughts.

“Uh,” he gasped and blinked a few times, comprehending the words of his A.I. “Yeah, sure.”

Seconds after that, Stark heard the echo of the steps on the floor of his workshop and soon after, Rhodey walked out from behind Dum-E. “What are you doing?” he asked as soon as Tony came into view, his face serious as always.

“And I missed you, too,” Tony replied ironically, standing from behind his desk and moving towards another one with a bottle of scotch standing on it.

“What happened? Why did you and Pepper break up?” his friend asked straight away, standing right next to him, as he poured himself a drink.

“Ah, that,” Tony replied, taking a big sip from the glass and sitting on the desk, face directed to Rhodey, so he could see his face. He was breathing a little bit too heavy. He was worried. Great. That’s just what Tony needed now – another person worried about him and his behavior. He hated that, and it was happening every time he did something really wrong. Which was often.

“Yeah, that. I called her and she didn’t want to talk to me. What happened between you two?” Rhodey sent him a questioning look.

“I screwed up,” Tony shrugged with resigned face. “I screwed up big, and I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

Rhodey watched him as he was downing the glass and pouring himself another drink. “And you think this will help you?” He gestured at the bottle Tony was just putting back on the desk.

“Nope. I just don’t have anything to do besides thinking and I need to have my hands busy,” Stark answered, shrugging again. “Oh, maybe you want some?”

“No, thanks. Look,” his friend sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, concern was more than visible in them. “Just tell me what happened, and I’ll see if I can help you.”

“You can’t,” Tony said before the man finished the sentence. “No one can, really.”

There was another sigh and Rhodey sat down on the desk right next to his friend. They both looked at each other for a long second, before Tony looked away, feeling guilty.

“What did you do?” Rhodey asked again, this time quietly and calmly.

Tony took a few deep breaths and looked at the liquid inside his glass. He moved it and watched how the scotch reacted to the movement. When he felt Rhodey’s strong hand on his shoulder, he couldn’t help but pull a face.

“I—” he started and felt his throat clench. “I cheated.”

Silence filled the room after these two words. Tony didn’t look up at his friend, afraid of what he might see in his eyes. No matter what was there, he would surely not like it.

“I hope the girl was a good one, if you picked her over Pepper,” Rhodey said finally, with an empty voice.

“It wasn’t a girl…” Tony whispered. The hand on his arm clenched a little, sending a small wave of pain through his muscles.

“With—a guy? But wait,” the man said quickly. ”You came back a week ago and you weren’t together for exactly that long. When did you manage to actually screw a guy, Tony?”

There was a long awkward pause, when Tony just cleared his throat, moved uncomfortably on the desk and kept looking into the glass. This was enough for Rhodey to start putting the pieces together, and when he finally did it, he said straight-forwardly what he thought about this.

“Tony, oh my god,” he stood up, walked a few steps forward and turned to look at his friend with shock. “You stupid bastard, he kidnapped you and held you captive for almost a month and you fucked him?!”

“I happen to remember that perfectly, thank you very much,” Stark replied angrily. “And it’s not like I had any say, you know.”

Rhodey frowned at that. “What do you mean?”

“They didn’t tell you? He put a spell on me and took control over my whole body and partly mind, too. I think.”

“You think,” Rhodey picked it up and repeated mockingly. “So he basically raped you.”

Tony looked at him, thinking about this one.

Could he agree with that for the sake of this conversation? He actually considered Loki’s well-being if he decided to do that. But he couldn’t bring himself to say yes at that or simply nod. It just felt bad to him, partly dumping the blame on him. Tony had to deal with this one himself, just like he did with Ten Rings and the Jericho missiles Obadiah sold them. Besides, there was no point in him doing that. Loki was already blamed for a lot damage and deaths on Earth; Pepper and Rhodey didn’t need another reason to hate the god.

Tony didn’t say anything to that. He had no idea what Rhodey thought about that, but the next question that left his mouth was about events that took place in the previous month. So, basically, what he told the Avengers at the meeting a week ago.

He told the exact same story as he told the team, and when he finally finished, Rhodey left for work, wishing him good luck.

The rest of the day and a whole night Tony spent in bed, thinking about the situation and considering every way out of this. He needed to do something with that eventually, he couldn’t just wait and let the time flow, hoping that everything would go back to normal.

Because it never would.

Loki was constantly on his mind, the theory about the spell was out of the question here and he still couldn’t bring himself to admit the thing that was constantly floating in his head.

He decided he needed to do one thing.

He needed to find Loki.

And have his revenge.

* * *

 

After he took his shower the next day he decided to check if Thor wasn’t on Earth visiting his girlfriend. Tony didn’t know if something changed between them during the time he was with Loki, but it was worth a try. He really wasn’t looking forward to another talk with Fury.

He went to the kitchen on his floor in the Stark Tower and made himself a steaming cup of coffee, ignoring his stomach. He hadn’t eaten since—he couldn’t even remember the last time he ate, but this had happened to him a lot before. Finally Pepper would give him food to keep him alive.

Just this time Pepper would not bring him a shawarma or anything of that kind.

This thought hurt like fuck and Tony had to clench his teeth from the pain he felt. It was all in his head – well, mostly, that’s for sure – but it still hurt almost like the operation Yinsen did on him, back in the caves a few years ago. And knowing he caused all of this and that Pepper was probably in a way worse state right now just made him feel like the biggest bastard on earth. And maybe he was the biggest bastard on earth, who knows? He was called that so many times, he should probably start believing it.

He grabbed the cup of coffee in his right hand and walked towards the elevator, so he could go down to his workshop. As soon as he entered the place, he called his A.I. “JARVIS, check if Thor’s somewhere here. I need to talk to him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tony sat down behind one of his desks, formed into a half circle in the middle of the workshop, and placed the coffee on some papers. He grabbed the sheets with his multiple test results and went through all of the data there again, just to keep his mind busy. He couldn’t find anything odd in there, of course. If JARVIS couldn’t find anything, he certainly wouldn’t, either.

After fifteen minutes he heard the voice of his A.I. filling the room. “Sir, I have found Mr. Odinson.”

“So, he’s on earth,” Tony said to himself grabbing the almost empty cup of coffee and taking the one last sip. “Where is he?”

“New Mexico, sir.”

“That’s not far,” he said happily and raised himself from the chair. “JARV, get one of the suits ready. And transfer all the data about where he’s staying into it.”

“Doing so as we speak.”

“Good boy,” Tony praised the A.I. and walked slowly towards the place the suits were stored.

* * *

 

Chains burned his wrists and ankles. They were replaced whenever the temperature fell enough to not cause any pain to Loki. Which meant it was every five minutes. His Frost Giant form was easing the pain and making it worse at the same time – it gave Thanos the opportunity to try some more tortures on the trickster.

There was constantly someone with him; since he sent Stark to earth he was not left alone for even a second. As soon as Thanos discovered Loki couldn’t turn himself back into his As form, he’d tried to make him regret his actions.

But Loki didn’t regret saving Stark. He couldn’t be more happy with the fact that he was gone from this place. Even if he had no idea if the man survived the fall and where exactly he had sent him, it didn’t matter to Loki. The most important thing was Thanos hadn’t managed to lay his dirty hands on him. Tony would not have survived this; it would be better for him if he was dead.

The god felt rough and brutal hands on his ankles and wrists. The time to change the chains had come. Two of the Chitauri soldiers held him in place while the third one took the now frozen chains and put them into the fire not far from Loki’s feet. All of it was burning his Jotun skin, leaving scars when he managed to heal himself in the time his bonds were heated. Every time they were put back into place, the wounds were getting deeper and deeper. By now Loki could almost feel the heat on his bones.

He watched the soldier taking the chains out of the fire with iron gloves on and moving with an awful smile on his face towards Loki. He arched his body up the second he felt the painful heat back on his flesh. The red chains were burning their way into his muscles, leaving black fried meat behind them. It was unbearable for the god. He had no idea if they were planning on trying that on him in his As form, but he was sure it wouldn’t hurt as much as it hurt right now. His body temperature was fighting with the bonds but it was just causing Loki more pain.

When he fell back on the table and raised his eyelids a little bit he saw Thanos’s disgusting face just above his.

“How are we feeling, God of Mischief?” He said the last three words with a mocking manner, not missing the opportunity to spit in Loki’s face.

“N—never felt—t bet—ter,” the god replied with difficulty.

Thanos slapped him in the face hard. Loki felt as the skin on his cheek was cut with needles held by the creature in between his fingers. So, it was this time of the day now.

“Tie him well,” he heard Thanos voice.

The soldiers around him moved and fastened the chains to the table so Loki couldn’t move his limbs even a little. That meant they cut through his flesh even more deeply, and now he could feel the high temperature on his bones very well. He let out a silent cry of pain. It was followed by Thanos’s satisfied laugh.

“Tell me, was it worth saving the mortal?” He came back into Loki’s vision and looked at him cynically.

The trickster took a big breath and looked him straight in the eyes. “Yes,” he said with force. “And I would do that again if I had t—”

Before he could finish the sentence, Thanos gave him another slap on the same cheek, now cutting through what was left of the flesh.

Loki had little idea about how long he was held captive. There was no day and night here, only constant twilight, characteristic for the space. His eyes got used to that after some time, but he still couldn’t count the days. His track of time was lost. He slept when he could, and it was only for a few minutes. Never ending tortures kept him awake most of the time. His body was weak by now; he suspected it wouldn’t take long for him to die. He hadn’t eaten since they caught him, he barely slept and he was not a pure As. He was not immortal like Odin or Thor.

He was able to live long years, centuries but at some point his life would surely end while Thor and Odin and the rest of Asgard’s citizens would live on.

Now, all Loki could wish for was that his “family” and Tony would never find out how he died. He didn’t want anyone’s pity, especially from the person that made him feel better than he ever felt in his long life. He hoped the man would hate him, once he the spell was removed. There was no explanation for what Loki did to him and hate was the only thing Tony could feel for him now.

Wasn’t it?

That’s how humans’ – and his own – nature worked. They hated anyone who did bad things to them. Some of them searched for revenge, just like Loki did. There was zero possibility Stark would feel the same as Loki after the time they’d spent together. It hurt Loki to think like that, but that was the truth. He was just being honest with himself. He was doomed to live through the worst before his death and a broken heart was a part of it.

He screamed when the first needle was stuck right under his nail. Each time hurt more than the last one. The second needle was driven into its place and another scream left Loki’s throat. By the time Thanos moved to his gums, the trickster was close to fainting.

When the first needle was about to pierce the skin above his tooth, there was a loud crack and bright lightning crossed the sky. Everyone was blinded by the light and they tried to cover their eyes with their arms. Thanos dropped all the needles on Loki’s face and curled up right next him, trying to hide himself from the bright light.

The next second a few bolts of lighting struck the creatures around Loki, blinding him completely, even with his eyes closed. He heard the bodies falling onto the ground, one by one. Then the light was gone.

He started blinking rapidly, trying to recover from all the brightness. Then he saw a large round face above him. It was surrounded by long blond hair, now messy, but surely neat before. He knew the view so well. Bright blue eyes looked at him with horror, when Thor took the needles off his face and placed both of his uncovered hands on Loki’s cheeks, not even caring about the low temperature that could freeze him soon enough.

“Brother,” he said in pain. “We are going home.”

* * *

 

Tony was sitting on the black leather couch in his living room with a full glass of scotch in his hands. He just stared blankly at the big plasma screen on the wall across from him. He was thinking about his last meeting with Thor.

The god had told him Loki had been found. Heimdall, whoever that was, finally managed to track his magic and he had led them to the trickster. For some reason, Thor didn’t want to say what had taken place in the Chitauri realm. And in what state Loki was found. It must’ve been really bad, since Thor  thought hard before he said anything about his brother. And every time it was completely different than the answer he was supposed to give to Tony’s question.

He came back to Asgard after their short talk and there had been no information from him since. Three days without update on Loki’s state made Tony go crazy. He was sure Asgardian healing methods were far better than the Earth ones, but he still couldn’t stop himself from worrying about the god.

And it made him feel like a piece of shit.

He wasn’t supposed to be worried about him. He was supposed to be happy the Chitauri gave him a lesson and to hope Thor’s father would now give him a fair punishment for what he did in New York.

But he couldn’t do that. He just wasn’t that kind of person. Even though Loki had done what he did, he’d told Tony his reasoning behind the act. And Tony forgave him for that the moment he heard that. And it wasn’t the spell’s doing. After it was removed, Tony got his mind back fully for himself and he still thought the same.

He just couldn’t help the fact he fell in love with—

No, no, no.

No.

This was not love. There was _something_ between them, but it was not this. After Pepper, Tony was more than sure he wasn’t capable of developing this particular feeling. It was just impossible for him. If he couldn’t love Pepper, the most amazing person that was in his life, there was no way he could love anyone else.

“Sir?”

He jumped in his seat, spilling scotch on the front of his jeans. “Fuck,” he said putting the now empty glass on the coffee table in front of him and looking at the wet stain. “What?” he called in angry voice.

“Miss Potts is waiting by the door and asks if she can come in.”

Tony froze on the couch and thought about this for a long minute. Pepper was at his door. And was asking to come in. What was that supposed to mean? Since when did she ask to enter any place Tony lived in? There could be no worse start to this visit than this. The guilt filled every cell of his body again and he flinched at the feeling.

“Of course she can come in,” he said finally, rising from the couch. “Let her in, JARV.”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked towards the bar in the back of the room and grabbed a few tissues from the box standing there. He tried to get rid of the wet stain, but it was still there, big and annoying. Meanwhile he tried to think about the reason Pepper had come. Of course, it was supposed to be _him_ to come to _her_. The sad truth was, when it came to saving the world and fighting bad guys – Tony was a brave man and a hero, but when it came to dealing with women and feelings he was the biggest coward in the whole wide world. That’s why it was always Pepper who was seeing his one-night-stand partners to the doors.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the echo of stilettos on the floor. After a few seconds Pepper came in.

Both of them immediately looked at each other. Tony saw pain in her eyes, the same one he saw ten days ago, when she was leaving the floor. It hurt so much to see it was still there. It wasn’t a long time difference, sure, but Pepper was a tough woman; it took a lot to break her before. She’d stayed cold blooded even when Tony asked her to blow the arc reactor up, so Obadiah could be stopped. And she did that, even with a knowledge that Tony could die, too.

If she still was so devastated after what had happened, this meant she really meant it every time she said that she loved him. And even though she never heard he loved her back, she kept saying it. And the person she loved was the one to break her completely. Tony felt even more of an asshole, right there, when he realized that. He had no idea how he should fix this, and that just made him feel even worse.

“Uh, hi,” he said, smiling shyly, putting the wet tissues away.

Pepper just nodded her head and walked towards the couch, where she sat down. After that she turned in her seat and looked at Tony. He remained by the bar, watching her with a mix of curiosity and distress. He had no idea what he should expect of her right now. He thought about the worst, but the point was he couldn’t think what would be the worst thing right now. Everything would hurt him – and her – the same.

“Can you sit down?” she asked, looking at Tony expectantly.

This time he was the one to nod. He took a deep breath and sat down on the other side of the couch. He didn’t want to make both of them more uncomfortable than they already were.

Pepper stared at the empty glass in front of Tony for a while. Neither of them said a word. Tony was waiting for her to speak up first, but either she was waiting for him to do that, or she was trying to pick the right words. Each of the possibilities made the engineer more anxious.

“I came here,” Pepper finally started without taking her eyes off the glass, “because I wanted you to be sure that I won’t leave the CEO position in the company.”

He closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. His breathing was loud and full of tension – he could barely inhale and exhale through his throat. “Okay. That’s, um—” he said, rising his eyelids. “That’s great. You’re better than me at the job, so…”

At that very moment she decided to look at him. Her eyes were full of tears, glittering in the sun, falling through the big windows. Tony’s instant reaction was to come closer and hug her, but he stopped before his body made a movement. He couldn’t do that. Not when he was the source of her pain and the reason this whole thing even happened.

“I--,” he started, but couldn’t say anything. What can one say at that kind of situation? How was he supposed to comfort her? All he could say right now would just make everything worse; there was no point in speaking at all. And still, he felt he was supposed to say _something_.

“I just want to know one thing,” she spoke up, her voice shaking from all the trying to keep the tears from falling. “How did it happen?”

Tony frowned. “What do y—oh,” his shoulders fell a little and he looked at his tangled fingers on his lap. “I don’t know. He had control over me all this time. At least that’s what I thought. I thought he made me do all these things, but… When I got my mind back, I— I know he had some control, but I’m not sure how much, and I’ve been thinking and—”

“Tony,” Pepper interrupted him. “Can you look at me?”

He pulled a face and raised his head slowly, looking with fear into her blue eyes.

“I can’t forgive you. Not now. Maybe someday I will be able to do that, but—for now, let’s keep our relationship strictly in the working sphere.” She sighed heavily and smiled, but Tony could see how much it took for her to do that. “And you still didn’t answer my question. I want to know how this happened.”

“But,” he pulled a face again. “What am I supposed to tell you?” he asked with a dose of pain in his voice.

“Start from the beginning,” she said simply and sat more comfortably on the cushions.

He pinched the base of his nose with his thumb and pointing finger. It was followed by a heavy sigh. He sent her a sorry look and started talking.

He told her everything. About their talks, that were more honest than the god would have wanted. How the feeling grew inside of him with every day spent with Loki and their every talk. Now, he was sure it was mostly the teasing conversations that made him feel that way. Sex was just a bonus he was more than excited to agree on. And it seemed like the trickster needed that.

Soon, Tony lost control of his words. He was talking about everything that he saw and felt during these four weeks. How he enjoyed the nights at the beginning and how he was pleasing Loki just to see a smile on his pale face. How he wanted to give the god everything he missed since he fell from that bridge in Asgard. And how he finally felt like he couldn’t sleep without Loki next to him. How he didn’t want to leave him alone and was worrying every time he lost him from his sight.

When he finally stopped, he saw shock in Pepper’s eyes. He started going through everything he had just said to make sure he hadn’t said anything to make her feel like this. The problem was the story itself probably did that. So he just stared at her with fear trying to read something from her face.

It was after a long while, in which Tony started getting paranoid, when she finally opened her mouth.

“You don’t even have an idea how deep this thing went, Tony,” she said seriously.

“What do you mean?” he asked her immediately.

She just shook her head and stood up from the couch. “You will know soon,” she replied and started walking towards the elevator.

“Pep, wait,” he called after her and followed her steps. “I need to ask you one more thing.”

She stopped and turned around on her stilettos. Tony stopped a few meters before her and cleared his throat anxiously. “Will we—be friends again?” he asked quietly.

She smiled sadly, naturally this time. “I hope so. We’ll see. But there is a chance.”

He looked at her happily and watched as she disappeared behind the elevator doors.

Well, this was better than he would have ever thought. There was _a chance_.

He was so happy, he felt like he could run ten miles at once. This was better than he could have imagined an hour ago, when she stood at his door. He didn’t have time to celebrate, though.

The sky behind the windows got almost black from bright blue in the blink of an eye. Tony knew what that meant. He hurried to the balcony entrance and watched as lighting broke the view of the deep grey clouds every second. After half a minute, one big flash of electricity cut through the sky and Tony was finally able to see a red cape at the beginning of it. It was getting closer and closer and after a few more seconds Thor landed on the balcony, his cape fluttering on the level of his shoulders from all the wind that was a part of the storm.

As soon as Thor stood up, Tony opened the glass door and invited him in with a gesture. The god walked inside, gripping his hammer tightly in one hand while the other was clenched into a fist. The engineer saw that and frowned at his teammate, closing the door.

“Something happened?” he asked, when Thor stopped in the middle of the room by the couch.

He turned to Tony and sent him a worried look. “Loki has escaped.”

The engineer froze. “What do you mean “escaped”? I thought he was too weak to do that.”

Thor moved his hammer dangerously and turned his back, walking around the room anxiously. “Our healers helped him to get well quickly. And as soon as his magic came back to its normal strength, he disappeared.”

“But—” Tony was at loss of words again. This day was not so lucky for his brain if it wasn’t able to build one sentence. “Do you have any idea where he is now?”

The blond god nodded. “Heimdall saw him for a very short time on Jotunheim.”

“The Frost Giants’ realm?” he asked, surprised.

Why there? He hated residents of that planet. Why he picked this one from all the nine realms to—

 _Of course_.

Thor seemed to read his mind and spoke up as soon as Tony got to know the reason.

“The last place we would search for him.”

They both looked at each other for a long time, not saying a single word.

Tony saw a chance.

This was the only chance to ask Thor the question he’d wanted to ask the last time, but didn’t get the opportunity. If Thor left now, who knew when Tony would see him again. And his revenge couldn’t wait any longer.

He looked all excited at the god and made a few steps in his direction, stopping right in front of him.

“Thor, you need to get me into Jotunheim.”

* * *

 

Loki hated cold.

There was nothing pleasant about this. Low temperatures always meant, for him, staying inside and reading. Not that he had something against it, it was just that after some time he knew all of the books in their library and, from lack of anything else to do, he was rereading the most interesting ones. He got bored with it very quickly.

As a child he envied Thor the fact that he could play in the snow with his friends. He was always coming back with red cheeks and a wide smile on his round face. Loki wanted to join them many times in their snow fights, but the reluctance kept him indoors.

Now, when he knew his true heritage, he had no idea why he hated snow and low temperatures so much. And he still did. But now he knew exactly why he didn’t like it. It was a symbol of a planet that got rid of him. None of the Frost Giants wanted him here; Laufey made that very clear when he abandoned his son.

Although he was well aware of that, he still picked this realm for his hiding place.

No one would search for him here. Thor would not think of Jotunheim as a place Loki would pick in that situation.

As soon as Loki’s magic was strong enough he left Asgard, keeping out of Heimdall’s watchful eyes and teleporting himself here. His hiding spell stopped working for a while once, when he fell into a deep sleep, but as soon as he realized that, it was back on him. He had no idea how long he was visible to the guard of the Bifrost, but there was no need to worry about that. Why should he still keep an eye on someone who wasn’t from his realm?

A stronger blow of the wind sent snowflakes into the air. For a minute Loki was sure it had started snowing again. He was sitting at the edge of his cave, watching the lands that were once, for a second, meant to be his. They were covered in a white fluff, the long forgotten lakes not visible under it. All of it was so white and… quiet.

He missed Tony being around him almost all the time. It used to annoy him much, when the man was refusing to leave the god alone. Now, he would give everything just to hear his voice again. To have him right here, right now. He wanted to feel his warm arms around himself again, and just stay there until all the cold went away and only the two of them would be left.

He sighed heavily and turned his back on the view. He was getting melancholic from all this loneliness. And all because of one mortal? What did Tony Stark have that made Loki think about him almost constantly?

_He stayed with you even when you told him everything._

No. It was the spell. It was I who made him stay. He was not thinking as himself. He would surely leave as soon as the spell was removed. I should have done that at the very beginning, and none of this would have happened.

The thought about removing the spell still hurt him as much as it had when he was thinking about this with Stark by his side. The truth was that no matter what the consequences of removing the spell were, Loki wouldn’t do that. He didn’t regret it that much. The only thing he regretted was the fact that he’d let himself fall in this useless feeling. He couldn’t live like he used to because of that and it made him furious.

The more he thought about this one particular use of the spell, the more he started to doubt he’d used it as much as he did with Barton and Dr. Selvig. He had problems remembering the commands he gave Tony every time he wanted to be close to him.

_It’s because there were no commands._

Loki shook his head and buried his face in his cold hands.

There _had_ to have been commands. Without them Tony would have just sat there all that time and done absolutely nothing. He had been a puppet in his hands; there was no other way the man would have willingly gotten close to him so many times.

Loki tried so much to convince himself like that, but it was so pathetic it wasn’t working even a small bit.

He just finally had to admit that—

A loud rumble cut the silence around him. He rose to his feet in a blink of an eye and turned to see what had caused it. All he managed to see was strangely bright blue mist at the horizon. Loki frowned, watching it for a few seconds until it faded completely and nothing was left. Suddenly it hit him.

“The Tesseract,” he whispered to himself.

Why would someone from Asgard travel into Jotunheim?

Was it just an accident it took place only days after Loki’s disappearance? Why would they even search for him? Last time he talked with Thor he’d told him he didn’t want to stay on Asgard, nor come back there ever again once he left it again. Was his brother stupid enough to search for him again?

Loki decided to move into a cave deeper into the tundra. Somewhere hard to reach, even for Thor. When Loki didn’t want to be found, he knew how to hide. There was not much to collect from the cave he was staying in now. He grabbed his leather coat and put out the fire. Then he left the place and started moving far away from it. The snow surrounded his legs up to his knees. It was hard for him to move, but he still took care of the trails he left behind. If, in any case, Thor reached this particular cave, he wouldn’t be able to reconstruct his path.

It was constantly dark in this realm, so Loki had no idea how long he wandered into the snow until he found the cave high in the mountains. It was not far from the place where he, Thor and their friends took part in a fight, because of which his brother was cast out on Earth. It was a good place, Loki thought, when he sat on the cold ground of the cave. Thor would not get close to this place. Not after what he did the last time, so there was zero possibility the trickster would be found. He started the fire with one snap of his fingers and lay down on his coat, watching the ceiling.

* * *

 

On the third day of his stay in the second cave he decided to hunt. Even as a god – or some kind of a god – he needed to eat. Not as often as humans, but this didn’t change the fact that he finally needed to leave his hiding place.

He crawled out from the cave and looked around to see if the snow near him was untouched. When he found nothing, he started walking down the slope of the mountain. At his height he would not find anything big enough to satisfy his hunger. The only Jotun animals that were able to survive this high were snow eagles. Big, ugly with not even a pound of meat on them.

It took him a little less than an hour to descend low enough to find some bigger animals. He didn’t even have to try hard. A big creature came up on him from behind one of the higher snow drifts. It looked almost like a Midgardian polar bear, but it was covered in blue rough skin, with long black claws on its paws. It was half Loki’s height, but the god was sure that if this creature stood up on its back legs it would be even higher than him. It was staring at the trickster with its big red eyes, showing off its teeth dangerously.

This wasn’t the first time Loki had to face a creature like that – on Asgard some of the animals were even bigger than the thing that attacked them the last time, when he was here with Thor, Sif and The Warriors Three.

He smiled under his nose, and leaned to the front a little bit, just like he was getting ready for a jump. One of his hands was behind his back, taking the small knives out of his leather belt. He and the creature looked at each other for a second, and finally it jumped on Loki. He started pushing knives into its belly, moving faster than the wind with the use of his magic. When it fell on the snow at the place the god had stood just seconds ago it was already dead.

Loki stared at the body and watched as the snow turned dark blue from the creature’s blood. He then whispered a spell under his nose and the corpse rose in the air to the level of his eyes. As he started climbing back up the slope, it followed him, not shaking even a small bit.

When Loki reached the inside of his cave he took the spell off, and the dead body landed on the cold ground with a loud thump. He knelt right next to it, taking out all of his knives and using one of them to skin his meal. It was hard to do with just a small knife but Loki was patient. Not like Thor, who always cooked the meat with skin still on it. When he finally finished, the dark blue blood of the creature was all over him. He snapped his fingers and it was all gone.

As he turned to the fire behind him to place a few pieces of meat over it, something caught his eye. A glimpse of light. From the inside of his cave. He looked at the right spot and slowly rose to his feet. The knife was still in his hand as he started walking towards the niche of the cave’s wall.

When he was close enough he heard a voice that made his heart beat a few times faster than usual.

“Uh, you found me.”

He heard the sound of blood flowing in his veins loud in his ears. It was almost like they were the veins and the blood was flowing inside them, sending the echo of his heart beat into the walls.

Loki blinked a few times, shocked. He stood paralyzed, with his knife still in his hand, and stared at Tony in his Iron Man suit standing in the niche, smiling uncomfortably.

That was enough for him. He started breathing heavily and made a few steps back, fisting his hands tightly. “You are not here,” he said with hoarseness in his voice. “You can not—”

Tony followed him and held out his hands, just like he wanted to hug him, but had decided not to in the middle of making a move.

“I am here,” he said with force and looked at Loki, worry in his deep brown eyes.

“No,” the god mumbled with the same voice. “That is not possible. How—”

“Thor helped me. I told him I needed to have my revenge.”

Loki looked up at him, startled.

Of course. Why else should he be here if not for revenge? He finally had the evidence that Tony hated him for everything he had done to him during these few weeks. He had the proof there had to be commands, and what the man did was against his will. He smiled bitterly and shook his head, now staring at the ground.

He was stupid. He’d kept having this one hope, that maybe there were no orders from him and Tony did everything because he’d wanted to. And everything he had said to the god in these four weeks was true. How stupid must he have been to actually hope for that?

“So be it,” the trickster said finally, looking up again, straight into Stark’s eyes. “I will not stop you. Do what you need to.”

The engineer watched Loki as he straightened up, relaxing his hands. The knife covered in blood fell to the ground, sending the echo over the walls of the cave. It rang in their ears as they stared at each other for long minutes. Neither of them made a single movement. Loki couldn’t even see Stark breathe because of the suit.

Then the man made one step towards the god. The metal gloves fell on the ground, which sent another ringing sound through the cave. Loki frowned at what was taking place in front of him. With every second and every step of Stark’s, his eyes were getting wider and wider. The ringing sound didn’t stop hitting the stone walls until the last part of the Iron Man suit was lying still on the ground.

Stark was now standing exactly a foot away from him, his head tilted up a little bit so he could stare into Loki’s eyes. What the god saw in the brown orbs made his heart beat fast again. There was no violence or need to fight. There was excitement and this _feeling_ deep inside these eyes. The god let his arms fall down a little bit, relaxing.

He had no idea what was going on. He kept looking into Tony’s eyes and he was sure the man could see how crestfallen he was by what had just happened.

“I didn’t come here to kill you, Loki,” Tony spoke up, breaking the silence with his calm and deep voice.

“Then why?” the god asked.

Tony broke the space between them, so they were touching with their chests. He had to tilt his head up even more now, and he still kept looking into Loki’s green eyes, that were now full of questions.

“Because,” he started after a pause, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Before Loki could respond to that, he felt Tony’s warm hands on the back of his neck. He pulled their faces closer and looked Loki dead in the eyes for a second. Then he closed his eyelids and placed a small kiss on the trickster’s lips. Like he was teasing him.

Loki looked him dead in the eyes, still surprised.

A thought was coming to him. The thought that all of his hopes were right, and Tony was here because he _did_ feel _something_. The excitement that rose inside his chest was stronger than anything he’d felt in his entire life. Apart from what he felt for the mortal.

He grabbed Tony’s head gently, putting his hands on the man’s cheeks. He kept looking into his eyes, seeing there nothing else but the same excitement and longing and… this one feeling that brought them together.

This time he was the one who initiated the kiss, making it passionate, hungry and full of bite marks on Tony’s lips. The god grabbed him tighter and pushed his lips hard against Tony’s, feeling his arms around his waist. Loki lowered his own hands on the small of the man’s back, bringing him closer.

Then Stark broke the kiss and hid his face in the crook of Loki’s neck. The god closed his eyes with a grimace of pain and buried his mouth and nose in the black hair of the man in his arms. They stood like that for what felt like hours, breathing each other’s scent and trying to believe this was really happening.

They were together again.

Loki felt warm lips on his neck, moving higher and higher with every kiss they left on his pale skin. He fisted his hands on Tony’s shirt, when the tongue was making its way up instead. He could feel the cold air of Jotunheim on his skin, particularly on the places Tony had marked. They started kissing one more time, now with only one purpose in both of their minds.

Tony moved his hands up on Loki’s sides slowly. When he reached the arms he put his hands under Loki’s coat and started taking it off slowly. When it fell on the ground he tangled their fingers together.

The god pushed him with his chest gently, making him take a step back. And then another and another. They were moving without breaking the kiss. Both of them had their eyes closed, hands holding and lips moving with the same pace and passion they knew so well. It made them feel like nothing had happened, like the Chitauri hadn’t found them and they weren’t apart for almost three weeks. It all felt so familiar….

They were both longing for all of this to come back, even if they didn’t want to admit that, but right this moment, when they finally _had_ it, they only knew how much they’d missed it.

Tony hit the cold wall of the cave with his back and a shiver went through his whole body, making his breathing shaky. Loki broke the kiss at that, released his one hand from Tony’s grip and snapped his long fingers. The temperature went up fast. The god could feel the heat of the campfire behind him that was now almost reaching the ceiling. It wasn’t melting the ice; the temperature was supposed to be just high enough for Tony.

“What did you do?” the engineer asked him with a small smile on his lips.

Loki just smiled mischievously.

He placed a hard but short kiss on his warm and red lips and stuck his tongue out, licking his way down his jaw and neck. He bit Tony’s collarbones lightly, and sucked at the skin perfectly in the middle. His hands were holding the neck of the man’s shirt, keeping it down so it wouldn’t disturb him. He came back to Tony’s lips slowly, pushing his tongue in hungrily.

The engineer tangled both his hands into Loki’s hair and moaned into his mouth, feeling the warm tongue on his. At the same time he moved his hips against Loki’s, searching for the needed friction. This time a loud moan of both men filled the cave. Loki let the material go back to its place and grabbed Tony by the hips tightly. Stark bit his lower lip in return and both of them smiled without breaking the kiss.

Warm hands were gone from Loki’s hair and now were squeezing his ass just to move on to the front of his leather pants. When Tony pushed them harder on the inside of his thighs he inhaled sharply and pushed the man harder into the wall. He then quickly unzipped Tony’s pants and pushed them down to his ankles, doing the same with his. Stark took off his black tunic along with his shirt and quickly wrapped his arms around him, like he was afraid Loki would disappear if the physical contact was gone.

They both gasped loudly as their half-hard cocks rubbed against each other. Loki reached in between their bodies to grab them in one hand. He squeezed them shortly and started moving his hand along their lengths. Almost immediately it made them both painfully hard. Tony placed both his hands on the god’s cheeks and kissed him strongly, pushing his tongue inside. He stopped after a second and moved his face closer to Loki’s, so his mouth was now touching trickster’s ear. “Fuck me,” he whispered as he felt a wave of pleasant warmth go down his spine.

Loki stopped and moved away from him a bit to look into his eyes. It took him a second to find out that Tony wasn’t joking.

He took two steps forward, so he was now in between Tony’s legs. He grabbed him by the hips and raised a little bit up the wall. Stark understood and wrapped his legs around Loki’s waist tightly. Their cocks brushed together hard and both of them moaned loudly into each other’s necks.

They remained in that position, motionless for a moment, feeling each other, breathing the scents and breathing harder and harder with every second. They still had trouble believing it all was real.

When Tony bit Loki’s arm impatiently, the god chuckled shortly and raised him a few inches up with one hand, grabbing his cock with the other. He placed it exactly under Tony’s ass, his head touching the entrance. He teased the engineer for a second and pushed inside fast and hard with another impatient bite on his arm.

Tony screamed quietly with pain and need and drove his nails into the smooth skin of Loki’s back. The god waited a few seconds for Tony’s muscles to adjust to the feeling and slowly and as delicately as he could, he moved his cock partly out, leaving the head inside. When Stark’s breathing calmed down he did a second thrust as fast and strong as the previous one and felt the nails go deeper into his flesh. He didn’t stop and started thrusting slowly into Tony. Every time he did it, it was with a different angle, as he was trying to find the right spot.

Tony leaned into his chest, breathing heavily into the skin under the god’s neck. Loki grabbed him by the jaw with one hand and moved his head up. Then he kissed him and continued thrusting as he pushed his tongue inside just to meet the one belonging to his lover. The loud moan let him in more, when he finally hit Tony’s prostate. They were still kissing as the thrusts became more aggressive. They were breathing fast and heavy, getting dizzier with every minute.

Loki felt his legs shake dangerously. It didn’t even take a minute until they failed to keep them both up in the air and he landed on the ground, still inside Tony’s ass. He was surprised by what had just happened, and his face made Tony laugh loudly. Then the engineer used the opportunity and pushed him further down, laying himself on the god’s chest. He bit Loki’s lips and then sat on his hips, supporting himself with his hands on the trickster’s chest. Then he started moving his hips up and down on the cock inside him, moaning as it hit his prostate again and again and again. Loki kept his hands on the man’s hips and helped him in keeping the right pace.

He was watching Tony as he kept moving up and down, with his eyes closed. The way he bit his lower lip made Loki painfully hard. When he felt the orgasm getting closer and closer he squeezed Tony’s hips tighter to lower the pace, but it worked opposite to his intention. The engineer sped his movement, making both of them start to scream – at first quietly, but they couldn’t keep themselves from being louder and louder.

“Uh, Tony,” Loki panted as he felt the wave of the biggest pleasure going through his body. Tony screamed his name loudly as he pierced his nails into the god’s chest and the warm wetness covered him. Stark sat tight on him, going through his own orgasm and when it was finally gone he fell down on the trickster, kissing him hard on the lips.

“I love you,” he whispered into Loki’s ear as he leaned into his chest.

* * *

 

The fire came back to its normal height, but it still kept giving a big wave of warmth. Loki and Tony were sitting on Loki’s leather coat with their backs leaning into the cave’s wall. The god’s arm was around Stark’s waist, keeping him close. Not that he needed to do that. Tony was almost on his lap, his head on Loki’s shoulder. They were fully clothed by now, sitting in silence and just thinking about what had happened.

Loki was the one to break the silence.

“How did you convince my brother to find me?” he asked softly, looking into the fire.

Tony looked up at him, shrugging. “I said I wanted to have my revenge. It took some time, gosh, lots, really, but my bitching finally convinced him.”

The god laughed shortly, and Tony could hear it was a true laugh, not a forced one.

That was something he could be proud of. He’d talked with Thor a lot, when they were searching for Loki together in these mountains and lands. The god of thunder had told him how rare it was for Loki to laugh honestly. Even after the jokes he was the author of, he never smiled with happiness. It was always satisfaction.

Now, when Tony looked up at him, all he could see in him was happiness. There was nothing less and nothing more. It was in his eyes, in his face, in his smile, he could even feel it in the beating of his heart. And the knowledge that probably he was the reason for it made his chest swell with pride.

“Will you come back with me?” Tony asked after a minute of silence. Loki looked down at him, startled.

“Do you wish me to?”

Tony sat straight in front of him. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

The god stared at him for a while.

How could he go back? To what? He couldn’t go back to Asgard, just like he couldn’t go back to Midgard. All that awaited him there was a punishment he had already had. Thanos made sure to punish him well, before Thor and Heimdall managed to find him. He didn’t want to take on another one. It didn’t matter to him that it would not be worse than what he had gone through already; he just didn’t want to have a sentence hanging over him for the rest of his life. And he was sure that’s how his coming back would end.

He looked away from Tony and sighed. “I do not consider it a good plan, Tony.”

The man frowned at that. “It’s because it’s not a good idea. It’s a _great_ idea and I need you to come with me.”

“Why?” the god asked without moving.

“Oh, c’mon,” Tony said wearily. “I’m not good with feelings, Loki. Don’t make me talk about them.”

The trickster looked at him seriously. “Why, Tony? Why do you need me to go with you?” he asked with force.

Stark pulled a face and sat down on his heels, looking down at the leather coat under his legs.

“Because,” he started slowly, “I can’t concentrate on anything when you’re not with me. These three weeks were chaos for me, I couldn’t do a single thing. I was just sitting around the rooms and thinking about you. And now that I’m with you…” he sighed heavily and bit on the insides of his cheeks. “It just feels right for me.” He finally looked up to see the god’s reaction. “And besides that, my girlfriend broke up with me, ’cause I said your name while we were having sex. I guess I have nothing to lose now.”

At the mention of a girlfriend, Loki felt a wave of jealousy going through his body.

Stark was his, how could anyone dare to…

“Ah,” he said aloud and smiled at his reaction.

“What?” Tony asked immediately.

Loki gave him an amused look in return.

He had no other choice. Even though he didn’t want to go through another punishment, he realized there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the mortal in front of him. He would go through everything just to have him right next to himself every night. The jealousy he had just felt helped him in that. All it took was the mention of someone else.

Loki smiled even wider, but still didn’t say a single thing when Tony repeated his question.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to let Stark go, now that they were together again. This thought didn’t even exist in his mind until now. Even when he was thinking about not coming back to Midgard, he somehow knew it meant nothing because he would go anyway. Even if Stark hadn’t asked him to.

“Do I have another choice?” he said finally. “You are mine now; I need to take care of you.”

“What do yo—”

He stopped the question by kissing Tony happily, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’d finally found something and someone who would manage to make him stay happy.


End file.
